I'll Stick With You, No Matter What
by Lightshade
Summary: Just a one-shot revolving around Victor and Jimmy as kids I did after seeing X-Men Origins:Wolverine. The posse was closing in fast, and with Jimmy collapsed in the snow, Victor was running out of options...


**Author****'****s notes: So, I saw X-men Origins: Wolverine yesterday. A good antidote to the abomination known as X3, and full of hot guys to boot. My favorite part was the brotherly bond between Logan/Jimmy and Victor. I wished they had focused a little more on it. So this one-shot fic was born from that and the most ridiculous thought as I watched the movie. When they fight in the bar, an image of a chibi Sabertooth walking around with a sleeping chibi Wolverine in his mouth like a mother kitten popped into my head. Yeah, I is weird like that. So, having no artistic abilities whatsoever, I thought, ****"****Under what bizarre circumstances would that actually occur in canon?****"**** This is the result. Warning, it gets a little fluffy and OOCish towards the end, but its hard portraying Sabertooth with a heart. This takes place just after the two run off into the woods at the beginning of the film.**

"V-victor, please, I'm t-too tired to go any further," James Howlett pleaded as he ran through the snow. Victor Creed paused in mid-step and turned to look at his younger half-brother. He was so emotionally drained that all he could manage was a blank stare. He had just watched as his father killed James' adoptive father, then as his brother did the same to their father in turn using…whatever it was that had appeared out of his hands. Now they was running for their lives through the woods, with a mob hot on their trails. So much had already happened that night it seemed surreal that Fate could possibly throw anything else at the young pair. But Dame Fate has never been known to be kind, even to the very young.

It was obvious that James couldn't go much further. While his fever was gone, it had weakened his body considerably. Running barefoot in the snow in nothing more than a robe and light cotton pants wasn't helping the situation much either. "We have to keep moving," the older boy growled out, and turned to continue running. He heard steps start hesitantly behind him, and then abruptly stop. A small _Whump!_ sound made him turn back around, and his dark eyes widened in alarm at what he saw. James had collapsed in the snow, unable to go any further. His face was almost blue.

Victor crouched beside the prostrate and unconscious form, indecision written on his face. He himself was unaffected by the cold. He mentally cursed himself for pushing Jimmy too hard. He weighed his options in his mind. If he abandoned the weaker boy, he could almost certainly outrun the posse… "_No!_" He pushed the thought from his head almost immediately. Jimmy was all he had left, he wouldn't, he couldn't abandon him. His keen ears picked up the sounds of the posse heading their way. They would reach them in a matter of minutes. He felt a hot rage enter his being. How dare they be hunted like animals! He wanted to tear each of them apart, watch the blood spurt out as he used his claws and fangs on each of them. Victor was surprised at the amount of darkness in his thoughts. He sniffed the air. There were at least ten members of the group, not including the dogs tracking them. That was about nine too many for him to take on and possibly hope to win.

He refocused his thoughts. His first priority had to be to hide himself and Jimmy. He looked around, hoping for a fallen tree or a bush, even a large snowdrift to temporarily hide in. No such luck. The area they were in had lots of trees, but no ground foliage. Looking to the sky in desperation, he saw a thick branch about thirty feet up sticking out of the stoutest tree in the clearing they were in. It looked like it could support both of them, and was high enough that anyone who couldn't see in the dark wouldn't be able to see them. Victor looked down at his already unnaturally long fingernails and closed his eyes in concentration, focusing all his rage and anger. When he opened them back up, they now resembled claws. He lifted Jimmy up in his arms and approached the tree. But he now faced a second problem. He couldn't both carry Jimmy and climb at the same time. If the boy had been awake, he could have held on piggyback style, but would fall off if such a maneuver were attempted while he was unconscious. Victor ground his fanged teeth together in frustration, trying to think of a solution. The mob was closing in fast. His teeth! That was it. An idea so absurd it just might work popped into his head. He put Jimmy on the ground, and grasped the loose edge of his clothing, right at the neckline where it all bunched up. He gingerly lifted the boy's limp figure up into his mouth, hoping the fabric wouldn't tear. He raced up the tree as quickly as he could, arriving at the branch in seconds. If someone had pointed out how he resembled nothing so much at the moment as a mother cat carrying a kitten, he would not have been amused.

As he put his burden down gently, he could see the posse arriving where they had been seconds before. Both the dogs and men became confused. The footprints and scents had both vanished, seemingly into thin air. "They can't have gotten far!" the leader of the group, a short man holding a lantern bawled out. "C'mon hounds. Find the scent boys!" Victor pressed Jimmy close to him and willed himself invisible as the dogs meandered about, noses to the ground. If they found their hiding place, they'd be treed, just like a pair of raccoons. But Lady Luck, seeing that the boy had manufactured so much luck on his own, decided to dole out a little of her own. At that moment, about a hundred yards away, a rabbit hopped out of its winter burrow for a nighttime stroll. It was unseen to human eyes, but both Victor and the dogs caught the musky odor on the wind. The lead hound, discovering something much more interesting than the lost scent of a human, bayed out in triumph. He took off like a shot, the others close behind him. "He got it agin! Go get 'em boys!" the leader shouted excitedly. The men ran after their wayward dogs.

Victor breathed a small sigh of relief. Finally, something had gone right this hellish night. Grasping the boy again in his mouth he slowly made his descent. Reaching the ground, he tried to retract his claws. Finding he was unable to, he transferred the load to his arms gingerly, and then set out again. Jimmy felt so cold. He could barely hear his heart fluttering faintly. He walked on resolutely, knowing if he didn't find shelter they could both possibly freeze to death. The minutes ticked away, and even Victor's great endurance began to give out. He was exhausted, both mentally and physically. The forest seemed to stretch on without end, and now it seemed to all blur together. He needed to rest soon, or he would end up in the same condition as his brother. Fortunately, luck was still on his side.

The grandfather of all oaks lay ahead. Six men stretching their hands across still wouldn't have been able to touch all the way around. There was an opening in the roots, just big enough to fit a person through. Victor headed straight for it. Laying James' prone form on the ground, he crouched down, and went in it feet first, praying that he wasn't about to disturb an angry bear's den in the middle of hibernation. His feet landed in a pile of soft, dry leaves. The temperature change from the outside was immediately felt. Dragging his brother in after him into the hole, he immediately set to work on warming him up, massaging his limbs to get the blood flow going. He was relieved to see some color return to the boy's cheeks after a few minutes.

Jimmy's eyelids began to flutter, and he struggled back into consciousness. As he did so, his bone claws reflexively slid out. His eyes opened to the sight of his brother's watchful face. In later years, Jimmy would be able to read the small bits of emotions that his brother occasionally let slip past the mask of anger and rage. He would have instantly known the expression in his brother's eyes as relief. As it was, he only saw the fathomless black orbs watching him steadily. "Wh-what…where…" he wheezed as he struggled to speak and sit up.

"Shhh," his brother soothed, pushing him back down gently. "It's alright. You're safe. Try to get some rest."

"Oh…Okay…Good…Feel safe...with you… " Jimmy muttered as he slipped back in a peaceful, dreamless sleep. Victor took his coat off and covered Jimmy's sleeping form with it. He noticed the three claws, so similar to his own, still sticking out from between the boy's knuckles. His hand was tensed up, as though unused to the added weight. If he rolled over onto those while he slept, he'd impale himself. Victor took one of the hands and stroked it gently until it relaxed. The bony claws slowly resheathed themselves, leaving tiny pinprick holes that begin to close up immediately afterwards. Victor looked down at his own, willing them to grow shorter. The appendages complied, so that they looked like harmless fingernails again. Victor finally lay down with his back touching his brother's, letting the welcome specter of sleep come. As his thoughts became muddled and fuzzy as he drifted off, he recalled what he had said earlier that night, though it now seemed like a lifetime ago. "_Keep on running, don't look back! We're brothers, Jimmy! We stick together no matter what. We'll take care of anyone who gets in our way._" That's what he had said, and he promised himself that he would always live by those words. They were all each other had left in the world. With those thoughts, Victor finally let sleep overtake him.

Asleep, his body instinctively did what his buried emotions would never allow. He rolled over so that he faced his brother, his arm draped protectively over Jimmy's sleeping form, as he buried his head in the nape of his brother's neck. He inhaled the scent that had informed him that he had a brother long before his drunken father's dying words had. There, the two mutants who would one day be feared for the reputation of being cold-blooded killers slept peacefully through the night.


End file.
